Two-time cancer survivor faces down disease with Warrior Sisterhood

Pam Frick is approaching 50 but doesn’t dread the passage of time as some women her age do.

She calls the last 20 years a blessing after a cancer diagnosis at age 28.

“Birthdays are a gift,” the Richland woman said.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which gets Frick passionate about encouraging others to get educated about being their own advocate for their health.

She’s one of four co-founders of Warrior Sisterhood, a support group offered through the Tri-Cities Cancer Center in Kennewick that helps provide emotional and financial support to Tri-City area women fighting cancer or diagnosed with a BRCA gene mutation, which puts women at a high risk for breast and ovarian cancers.

The group’s annual fundraiser Pink the Parkway — now in its third year — is Oct. 17 in Richland. All the money raised at the event stays local and is used to purchase Visa gift cards to give to newly diagnosed women under 40.

Frick, 48, said it’s important that younger women in the area know they don’t have to face a cancer diagnosis alone.

“Warrior Sisterhood is not just about breast cancer. I don’t want people to think it’s just pink ribbon things. We have enough awareness, but if you can’t physically help with finding a cure or treatment, you can help with support,” she said.

Finding cancer

Frick’s cancer journey began in 1995.

The 1985 Richland High graduate, who married her high school sweetheart Glenn, was four months pregnant with their second child when she noticed a red mark on her breast about the size of a quarter. “I felt a tightness and it was warm,” she said.

She shrugged it off and went to work.

During a regularly scheduled obstetrics appointment that week, her nurse practitioner said the redness was mastitis, an infection of the milk ducts. Frick got a prescription for antibiotics and went on her way.

After a month of more antibiotic treatments, she was sent to a surgeon to get the “infection cleaned out,” she said.

No one mentioned the word “cancer.”

But when the spot was removed and the tissue sent to a pathologist, the diagnosis came back: inflammatory breast cancer.

Frick has no breast cancer history in her family and had a normal mammogram four months earlier, so the rare, aggressive breast cancer diagnosis came as a shock.

A Seattle surgeon told her she would have to make a choice.

“He told me the chemo will kill my baby, and if I didn’t do chemo, I was going to die. He said I needed to decide what I was going to do,” she said.

The following day, she saw a Seattle oncologist who apologized for what the surgeon had told her.

“He told me that chemo was OK and the baby would be OK. It was the answer to a prayer, really,” she said.

A baby plus mastectomy

She returned to the Tri-Cities with a plan of attack. Chemo first. Then surgery to deliver her baby via Caesarean section, followed immediately by a single mastectomy to remove the cancerous breast.

The couple’s baby was born six weeks early, weighing 5.8 pounds, and spent a week in the neonatal intensive care unit at Kadlec Regional Medical Center.

Frick and her husband named the baby Chance.

“We had to take a chance on this (pregnancy) after being told I couldn’t have him,” she said.

Chance turns 20 years old next month.

“I should be dead or my mom should be dead — that’s what it boils down to. It is crazy to think about it,” Chance said.

Instead of delighting in her newborn, Frick had to heal from the two surgeries, finish three more brutal rounds of chemo and undergo radiation, she said.

After that, she was told she should have a stem cell transplant.

Frick didn’t have a family match, so she tried stocking up her own stem cells. But the chemo had knocked down her immune system, and it was difficult to collect enough. She struggled about whether to proceed with the transplant because there was the possibility of internal bleeding and infections.

Her faith showed her the right path.

“I remember looking out of a window, thinking about what to do. I heard — not in so many words — but this: ‘I’ve taken care of you up to now. I’ve taken care of the baby. I’ve taken care of you this far. What makes you think I’m not going to take care of you now?’ I didn’t do it.”

And today, she knows it was the right choice. She said her doctor told her that stem cell transplants proved not to be effective treatments for breast cancer.

A recurrence

Frick credits the immeasurable and steadfast support of her boys — her husband, oldest son Justin and Chance — with helping her through her darkest days because there were more ahead.

A different kind of cancer returned in her remaining breast in 2010. She faced more chemo, more radiation and another mastectomy.

The weekend before her surgery, she walked in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day walk in Seattle in honor of a friend who died from breast cancer at age 40. It pumped up her spirits before her surgery, she said.

“I wasn’t scared. You’re surrounded by people who’ve been there before. It was such an amazing experience, and it kind of gave me more fight,” she said.

But Chance was worried.

“I was 15. I remember being scared. I didn’t come to terms with the scope of it for a couple of weeks at least. I remember I just started crying and had to open up to my friend. ... I might lose my mom and I can’t do anything about it, and it was scary,” he said.

Finding fellow warriors

Frick approached the recurrence with a positive attitude, her son said.

And that’s when she began connecting with other women facing the same cancer challenges in the Tri-Cities and discovered there really wasn’t a support group for women her age.

“I was 28 and went to couple of support group meetings, but you’ve got grandmas in there, and I’m raising little kids. I was dealing with so much that was different, dealing with still working and raising your family,” she said.

The Warrior Sisterhood group formed three years ago.

Warrior co-founder Misty Ovens of Richland was 34 when she got her breast cancer diagnosis. She also realized there wasn’t a good support network in the Tri-Cities for younger women.

“Warrior Sisterhood provides a group of women who understand what you are going through and are there to laugh, cry and yell with you during your battle. There is immense comfort in knowing you are not alone,” Ovens said.

Frick agreed: “You do just want to talk to someone, and these are people you want to do that with.”

Frick said she doesn’t think about cancer recurrences anymore.

“I’ve already had 20 years I never expected to have after Chance was born,” she said.

This story was originally published October 14, 2015 at 1:34 PM with the headline "Two-time cancer survivor faces down disease with Warrior Sisterhood."